By Alexis Coore 20'
Dunellen High School certainly falls on the smaller side of the scale when it comes to the size of high schools. With only 350 students in a building that is less than half a block large, there isn’t much room for adding any new classes or additional activities. Nonetheless, even with these constraints, a new class has been introduced for the 2019-2020 school year. By adjusting the schedule, DHS has instituted a Graphic Novels course during eighth period, taught by Mrs. Pair.
Mrs. Pair has been an English teacher here at DHS for five years and previously taught the journalism course. During the 2018-2019 school year, the idea of starting a comic book class was presented to her. “When Mr. Mosley approached me with the idea of starting a graphic novels class, I absolutely jumped on it. I thought that it would be a great class to introduce to students of varying levels. It was something that I had always thought about, but I didn’t know it was something I could do.” Teaching this new class isn’t very different from teaching her English classes, Mrs. Pair explains. She still explains theme, motif, and authors’ choices, but now she must also cover topics such as shading and the analysis of colors.
Though graphic novels do not seem quite as formal as other forms of writing, such as poems or speeches, that does not mean these novels are immature in any way. In fact, the books chosen for the class tend to cover rather sensitive subjects. For example, Speak by Laurie Anderson, is one of the books the students can read and follows the story of a girl dealing with rape. Because of these delicate topics, the class is limited to only upperclassmen, as they typically have the maturity to properly deal with these materials, according to Mrs. Pair. In addition to lesser-known novels, Mrs. Pair also incorporates a few superhero comics into the curriculum as well, such as the X-Men comics.
With the installment of a graphic novels class, DHS students can now begin to benefit from all of the advantages that comic books have to offer, especially those who are visual learners. Because the story is visually unfolding before their eyes, it will be easier for students to pick out details that might evade them in a traditional paragraph format. In addition to that, readers on the spectrum will be able to better understand the emotions based on people’s faces as well as typical hand gestures that might usually elude these readers. It also takes much less time to read a graphic novel than it does to read a standard one, making it easier for those with short attention spans to finish the book while still being able to analyze the story-line, theme, and stylistic choices.
As the class evolves over time, Mrs. Pair plans to evolve with it. “I think that as a teacher, me personally, I make changes every year to all of my classes… I’m really going into this with not a lot of outside resources to help me with it.” Since not very many schools offer classes like Mrs. Pair’s, there was nothing to sample from when she began writing up the curriculum. Her husband, an English teacher at Bernards High School and an avid graphic novels reader, helped her set up the class.
Alas, Mrs. Pair is expecting her second child, and she will be going on maternity leave on January 18th. However, she will be back in time for the 2020-2021 school year and plans to “come out the gates” much faster with her future batch of students.
